LITMIR.BIZ

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to the light. When they did, though, it was only enough to see a few feet in front of his face. He began to step carefully through the factory.

      Oliver gasped with wonder as he came across a huge contraption of wood and metal, like an oversized cooking pot. He touched the side and the bowl began to swing like a pendulum in its metal frame. It spun as well, making Oliver think it had something to do with mapping the solar system and the movement of planets around it, spinning on several axes. What the contraption was actually for, though, Oliver had no idea.

      He stepped on further and found another strange-looking object. It was made of a column of metal but with a type of mechanically operated arm coming out the top of it and a claw in the shape of a hand at the bottom. Oliver tried the turning wheel and the arm began to move.

      Just like an arcade game, Oliver thought.

      It moved like the ones with motorized arms and a claw that you could never catch a stuffed toy with. This was much bigger, though, as if it had been designed for much more than just scooping up objects.

      Oliver touched each of the fingers on the claw-like hand. Each had the exact number of joints as a real hand would have, and each part moved when he pushed it. Oliver wondered if Armando Illstrom had been trying to make his own robot, but decided it made more sense that it was his attempt at an automaton. He’d read all about them; wind-up machines in human form that could perform specific preplanned actions, like writing or typing.

      Oliver kept walking. All around him, great machines stood still and imposing, like giant beasts frozen in time. They were made of a combination of materials like wood and metal, and consisted of many different parts, like cogs and springs, levers and pulleys. Cobwebs hung from them. Oliver tried some of the mechanisms, disturbing a variety of insects that had made home in the shadowy crevices of the machines.

      But the feeling of wonder started to wear off as it began to dawn on Oliver, with a horrible sense of despair, that the factory had indeed fallen into disrepair. And not recently. It must have been decades ago by the looks of the thickness of the dust and the build-up of cobwebs, by the way the mechanisms creaked, and by the vast number of bugs that had taken up residence within them.

      With a growing sense of distress, Oliver hurried around the rest of the factory, peeking with diminishing hope into side rooms and down darkened corridors. There were no signs of life.

      He stood there, in the dark, empty warehouse, surrounded by the relics of a man he now knew he would never meet. He’d needed Armando Illstrom. He’d needed a savior who could lift him out of his gloom. But it had just been a dream. And now that dream was dashed.

*

      Oliver spent the entire bus journey home feeling wounded and deflated. He was too miserable to even read his book.

      He reached his bus stop and stepped out into the drizzly evening. Rain beat down on his head, soaking him through. He hardly even noticed, so consumed was he with his misery.

      When he reached his new home, Oliver remembered that he didn’t have his own key yet. Going inside seemed like an extra cruel blow to an already desperately sad day. But he had no choice. He knocked on the door and braced himself.

      The door was opened in one swift motion. There, in front of him, grinning demonically, stood Chris.

      “You’re late for dinner,” he said, glowering, flickers of delight behind his eyes. “Mom and Dad are flipping out.”

      From behind Chris, Oliver could hear his mom’s shrill voice. “Is that him? Is that Oliver?”

      Chris shouted back over his shoulder. “Yeah. And he looks like a drowned rat.”

      He looked back again at Oliver, his expression one of glee for the approaching confrontation. Oliver shoved his way inside, pushing past Chris’s big, meaty body. A trail of drips came off his sodden clothes, making a puddle beneath his feet.

      Mom hurried into the corridor and stood at the opposite end staring at him. Oliver couldn’t work out if her expression was relief or fury.

      “Hi, Mom,” he said meekly.

      “Look at you!” she exclaimed. “Where have you been?”

      If it was relief to see her son back home then she didn’t follow it up with a hug or anything like that. Oliver’s mother didn’t do hugs.

      “I had something to do after school,” Oliver replied, evasively. He peeled his soggy sweater off.

      “Nerd class?” Chris piped up. Then he laughed raucously at his own joke.

      Mom held her hand out for Oliver’s sweater. “Give that here. I’ll need to wash it.” She sighed loudly. “Now get inside. Your dinner’s going cold.”

      She ushered Oliver into the living room. Immediately, Oliver noticed that the things in his alcove had been messed with, moved around. At first he thought it was because a mattress had been dragged into place, and everything dumped on top, but then he saw the slingshot lying on his blanket. Beside it was his suitcase, the locks busted, its lid sitting ajar. And then he saw with horror that all the coils for his invisibility coat had been strewn all over the floor, bent out of shape as though they’d been stomped on.

      Oliver knew instantly that this had been Chris’s doing. He glared over at him. His brother was watching expectantly for his reaction.

      “Did you do this?” Oliver demanded.

      Chris shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels, in a picture of innocence. He shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said with a telling smirk.

      It was the final straw. After everything that had happened over the last two days, with the move, and the horrible school experience, and the loss of his hero, Oliver just didn’t have the reserves to cope with this. Fury exploded inside of him. Before he’d even had a chance to think, Oliver went barreling toward Chris.

      He slammed into his brother, hard. Chris barely even staggered backward from the force; he was so big and had clearly been expecting Oliver to lash out at him. And he was clearly relishing Oliver’s attempts to fight him, because he laughed maniacally. He was so much bigger than Oliver that all it took was for him to place a hand on Oliver’s head and shove him backward. Oliver flailed helplessly, none of his swipes coming even close to connecting with Chris.

      From the kitchen table, Dad called out, “BOYS! STOP FIGHTING!”

      “It’s Oliver,” Chris shouted back. “He attacked me for no reason.”

      “You know exactly what the reason is!” Oliver yelled, his fists flying through the air, unable to reach Chris’s body.

      “Me trampling on your weird little coils?” Chris hissed, quiet enough so that neither of his parents could hear him. “Or breaking that stupid slingshot? You’re such a freak, Oliver!”

      Oliver had exhausted himself fighting against Chris. He backed off, panting.

      “I HATE this family!” Oliver cried.

      He rushed to his alcove, picking up all the damaged coils and broken bits of wire, the snapped levers and bent metal, throwing them into his suitcase.

      His parents thundered over.

      “How dare you!” Dad shouted.

      “You take that back!” Mom cried.

      “Now you’ve really done it,” Chris said, grinning wickedly.

      As they all screamed at him, Oliver knew there was only one place he could escape to. His dreamworld, the place in his imagination.

      He squeezed his eyes shut and muted out their voices.

      Then suddenly he was there, at the factory. Not the cobwebby one he’d visited earlier, but a clean version, where all the machines gleamed and glistened under bright lights.

      Oliver stood there gawking at the factory in all its former glory. But just like in real life, there was no Armando there to greet him. No ally. No friend. Even in his imagination, he was completely alone.

*

      Only once everyone had gone

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